Aqueous gels offer an ideal platform for delivery of water soluble actives. Aqueous gels provide good absorption benefits and desirable skin feel attributes. Gel compositions also offer a platform from which a visually appealing product can be created. However, creation of a stable and consumer pleasing aqueous gel is difficult at low pH as needed for efficacious delivery of acidic actives. Acidic actives may be used as an exfoliant, a wrinkle reduction agent, pigmentation/tone aid, or as an active to improve many other skin conditions.
Inclusion of acidic actives can adversely impact desired characteristics of an aqueous gel. Maintenance of consumer preferred viscosity is one challenge associated with an acidic gel. Many conventional thickeners quickly degrade in the acidic environment resulting in destabilization and loss of viscosity over time. More robust thickeners often adversely affect the aesthetic properties of the gel. Namely, the gels can cloud, which limits the value of the gels as a platform for visually interesting designs or adjuncts (e.g., platelet particulates, encapsulate particulates, etc.).
One such adjunct known in the personal care arts is platelet particulates. Platelet particulates can provide a pearlescent or nacreous effect or light interference. A particularly effective platelet particulate is a mica platelet coated with thin layers of metal oxides such as TiO2 or Fe2O3. The thickness of the metal oxide layer(s) can be varied to yield unique color effects. Suspending platelet particulates in an aqueous gel is problematic when coupled with the requirements of maintaining a low pH, suitable viscosity, and an acceptable degree of translucency.
There is a need for an aqueous gel personal care composition comprising an acidic active at a low pH. The aqueous gel should exhibit consumer desirable viscosity. Furthermore, the aqueous gel should maintain consumer desired translucency while allowing for the suspension of aesthetically pleasing particulates.